Liwaladzi Tower Time-Lapse

Our crew departing for the work at Liwaladzi.

As Addie mentioned in her post, Liwaladzi was a very different experience from Chitala where we were essentially working on Main Street. Since we were off the beaten path here, we weren't surrounded with crowds of children. We could spend more time with the people we met and feel like we got to know them a little bit.

Beautiful Dinah hanging out in the back of the crowd.

I left a piece of my heart with Dinah, a shy beauty that just mesmerized us.

The tower construction was also conducted at a different pace. Since the unexpected but essential fabrication of crane parts had been done at Chitala, assembly work here could progress steadily. And the Water Mission technicians took the lead on this one while our team stepped back into oversight and assistance. Ellis, Sam and Craig rotated between turns on the tower with Nesbert and fashioning improvements to the process from the ground.


Craig and I took a walk through the village where a local man paused in his work to offer to get some oranges down from the upper branches of a tree. We headed toward the sound of music and were rewarded with a rehearsal by a women’s church choir. Children flooded in the door with us, watching us—“the azungu”—watch the women singing and dancing.

This woman is most likely telling her friend that
I would starve to death if I had to do this for a living.

We met many friendly people who shook our hands warmly and returned the simple Chichewa greeting Nixon had taught us. “Muli bwanji?” “Ndili bwino, kaya inu?” “Ndili bwino.” One woman asked, “May I know you?” in English, a quaint and sweet way of asking for our names, we soon found out when she offered her own. We passed two women making flour from kasava root, one of the staple foods in this area. They giggled at us (Craig was still wearing his hard hat.) and offered me a turn at the pestle.

The tower work progressed rapidly—completion time went from two and a half days at Chitala to one and a half days at Liwaladzi. You may remember Manesi and Mavis from Addie’s post. This time lapse was shot from the roof of their house adjacent to the tower site.

As completion neared, the Village Chief Harrison Zunga and his lovely wife Mercy came by to check on our progress. Nixon had explained to us that there were two types of authorities that governed these rural villages and that there is recognition and cooperation by both sides. One is the traditional leadership, a hierarchy of chiefs from hereditary lines. The other is the political authority—from district councilors to members of parliament. I believe Chief Zunga is a village headman. He would be in authority over 40 or 50 families, maybe more. He handles disputes between households, many times about land, and has a council consisting of two or three elders who help him make judgments.

Chief Zunga and his wife Mercy

Next up, a group village headman would preside over approximately ten village chiefs and above that, a man dubbed the TA or traditional authority. The government recognizes these leaders and the communities give them an honorarium or a stipend for their service. Chief Zunga had selected which sites in the community would be used for the water tower and the water treatment building. He had also organized the community’s contributions to the system supplies and labor.


Of course, lastly, we participated in an assembly at school where we met with a representation of the student body—approximately 500 kids. The headmaster told us that the small school facility serves 1,800 students. It was hard to imagine, packed in as we were with 500. I think the five standards or classes they teach there rotate throughout the day. The headmaster met with us in his office before the assembly and prayed with us. He had a plethora of inspirational sayings posted on the wall espousing self-discipline, hard work, Christian values, responsibility to others, and the uplifting effect of knowledge. My favorite one went like this:

Education makes people easy to lead

but difficult to drive,

easy to govern

but impossible to enslave.

This poster from the school speaks to some of the sad problems that have plagued Malawi in the past. Thankfully, there seemed to be a real commitment in the areas where we were working toward education and improving quality of life for Malawi’s children.


Our visit to Liwaladzi ended with an impromptu dance that the students performed at their desks lead by one of their very charismatic and charming teachers.



I just realized how much dancing we have seen just in the course of daily life here in Malawi. There is a rhythm in these people that just bubbles over and reaches out to tease even the casual observer to smile and celebrate the moment.